The silence left in the wake of the Vortex Pirates' departure was a physical weight, thick with the lingering scent of ozone, blood, and shattered precedent.
They moved away from the main thoroughfare of Grove 41 not as fugitives, but as conquerors on a casual stroll, the stunned populace parting for them like wheat before a scythe.
The incident with the first Celestial Dragon wasn't an isolated act of rebellion; it was the opening salvo in a war Ragnar had declared the moment he set sail. His ambition to "have the world" was not some grandiose, distant dream whispered over sake.
It was a tangible goal, and its first step was the systematic dismantling of the World Government's perceived invincibility. And what better symbol of that invincibility than the so-called "gods" who ruled from the Holy Land?
His destination was clear in his mind: the Human Auctioning House in Grove 1. A festering sore on the face of Sabaody, a place where the worst excesses of the World Nobles were not just tolerated but celebrated.
He knew who would be there, drawn by the spectacle of misery like flies to rot: Saint Roswald and his daughter, Shalria. Two more trophies for his collection. Two more statements to be made.
The building itself was opulent in the most garish way, a sprawling structure designed to mimic a classical theater, its white walls and gold trim a stark contrast to the despair traded within.
The air outside was thick with the cloying perfume of the wealthy and the anxious sweat of those who served them. Ragnar pushed the heavy double doors open without a sound, his crew flowing in behind him like a tide of shadows.
Inside, the scene was a study in grotesque pageantry. The air was hazy, lit by crystal chandeliers that reflected off the jewels and silks of the affluent clientele.
On the raised stage, an auctioneer in a tailcoat worked the crowd with unctuous charm, his voice a slick, practiced drone.
And in cages and chains along the sides of the room were the "merchandise." Humans of all races, Longarms, Longlegs, Snakenecks, their eyes hollow, their spirits broken. It was a menagerie of misery.
But the centerpiece, the item drawing the most covetous gazes, was a mermaid. She was young, her scales a shimmering, short delicate silver, her hair the color of seafoam.
Her large, aquamarine eyes were wide with terror, brimming with tears that traced paths down her cheeks.
A placard around her neck read "Amy." She trembled in a large water-filled tank, the sight of her profound beauty and vulnerability only heightening the audience's predatory excitement.
Nami's breath hitched. Robin's calm smile tightened into something cold and sharp. Nojiko's hands clenched into fists, her knuckles white. Isabella's usual serene energy turned icy.
They looked at Ragnar, their faces a silent question, a plea for permission to unleash the storm they all felt brewing.
Ragnar met their gazes, his own golden eyes calm, almost bored. He gave a single, imperceptible nod.
That was all the signal they needed.
The transformation was instantaneous and terrifying. Robin didn't merely sprout arms. A halo of soft, golden light appeared above her head, and her eyes began to glow with the same ethereal luminescence. She was the Angel of Truth, and her power was to reveal and enforce reality.
"Cien Fleur: Judgment," she murmured, her voice echoing with an otherworldly resonance.
Dozens of arms, each one sheathed not in black Haki, but in pure, blinding light, bloomed from the walls, the floor, the very air. They didn't punch or strike. They touched.
Wherever a glowing hand landed on a slaver, a guard, or a complicit buyer, runes of light seared into their skin. These were not wounds, but brands of truth.
A man who had lied about his wealth to appear more important suddenly found his pockets empty, his fraudulent deeds materializing in the air before him.
A guard who had secretly enjoyed the cruelty of his work found his own memories of past brutalities projected onto the walls for all to see, his psyche crumbling under the weight of his exposed sins.
The auction house descended into chaos as the "truth" of its patrons was violently, embarrassingly revealed.
Nami stepped forward, the air around her crackling with nascent power. Her halo became a ring of swirling, miniature storm clouds. She was the Angel of Tempest, and the weather was her weapon.
"Heaven's Wrath," she whispered, raising a hand.
There was no Clima-Tact staff this time. She was the storm. A localized hurricane erupted inside the auction house. Wind howled, tearing tapestries from the walls and sending fine decorations and jewelry flying. But it was targeted.
The gale-force winds bypassed the caged slaves entirely, instead focusing on the slavers and buyers, lifting them from their seats and dashing them against the walls.
Then, fat, heavy raindrops began to fall, but these weren't water, they were tiny, stinging shards of hail that pelted the oppressors, driving them to the ground, covering them in bruises.
Lightning, no thicker than a finger but blindingly bright, arced from Nami's fingertips, striking weapons from hands and short-circuiting the electronic locks on the cages with precise, deafening CRACKS*.
Nojiko, her halo a perfect, still circle of blue light, became the Angel of Precision. She didn't move from her spot. Her eyes, now glowing with cerulean fire, scanned the room. She saw everything, the stress points in the architecture, the tiny gaps in chains, the weak points in armor.
"Shatterpoint," she said, her voice calm.
With a series of sharp PINGS and SNAPS, every single chain and manacle in the room, from the smallest wrist-cuff to the heaviest leg-irons, broke cleanly apart.
The metal didn't bend; it fractured along microscopic fault lines she had identified and targeted with her will.
Simultaneously, the support beams holding up the private balconies where the wealthiest clients sat groaned and splintered, collapsing in a controlled shower of dust and screams, isolating the main floor from any escape.
Then came Isabella. Her halo became a flickering, light-red corona. She was the Angel of Whispers, and her voice was a poison that seeped directly into the soul. She didn't shout.
She simply began to speak, her words a soft, seductive murmur that cut through the din of destruction and found its way into the ears of every guard and slaver still standing.
"You are worthless," her voice whispered in their minds.
"Your life is a stain. Look at what you've become. A peddler of flesh. A monster. They would all be better off if you were gone. The world would be cleaner. That blade in your hand… it wouldn't take much. Just a quick, sharp pull across the throat. All the noise would stop. The shame would end. Do it. Be free."
The effect was immediate and horrifying. Strong, hardened men, their faces contorted in sudden despair, dropped their weapons. Some fell to their knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
Others, with blank, dead eyes, turned their swords or pistols on themselves. The sound of a single gunshot echoed, then another, as the Whisper's suicidal compulsion took root. The remaining resistance didn't just break; it dissolved from the inside out.
Amidst the pandemonium, Nami, shielded by her own tempest, rushed to the central tank. With a touch, the reinforced glass frosted over and then shattered. She reached in, her hands gentle.
"It's okay," she said, her voice firm yet kind. "You're safe now."
"Y-You… you saved me?" The mermaid, Amy, stared at her, trembling.
"Of course," Nami said, helping her out of the tank and wrapping a discarded curtain around her shoulders.
"Slavery…No one deserves this."
Tears of relief now streamed down Amy's face. "Thank you! Thank you so much! My name is Amy! I will never forget this! Never!" She clung to Nami, her sobs those of someone pulled back from the brink of an unimaginable fate.
While his angels wrought divine retribution upon the auction house, Ragnar's attention had been elsewhere. His golden eyes had immediately found their prize: the elevated, plush private box where Saint Roswald and his daughter Shalria sat.
They had been watching the proceedings with bland amusement until the vortex of violence erupted. Now, they were half-standing, their faces masks of outraged confusion.
Ragnar moved through the chaos as if it were a still pond. Slavers flung aside by Nami's winds, guards crumbling under Robin's truth or Isabella's whispers, none of them even registered as obstacles. He was a force of nature on a straight-line trajectory.
He reached the base of their box and simply leaped, clearing the ten-foot height effortlessly. He landed in front of them without a sound.
Saint Roswald, a bloated man with a ridiculous curled mustache, sputtered, "How dare you, you common filth! I am a World-"
Ragnar's hand shot out, closing around the man's throat like a steel vise, cutting off his words and his air. With his other hand, he did the same to Shalria, who let out a choked squeal, her eyes wide with terror behind her bubble helmet. He lifted them both, their feet kicking a foot off the ground uselessly.
Kuro, Zoro, Bartolomeo, and Wyper, who had been efficiently and brutally dispatching any stragglers who approached their captain, paused.
They watched as Ragnar stood there, holding the two struggling Celestial Dragons aloft, not moving, not speaking. It was a bizarre tableau amidst the ongoing destruction.
"What's the captain doing?" Bartolomeo whispered, confused. "Just crush their windpipes and be done with it."
"He's waiting for something," Zoro grunted, his eyes narrowed.
Then, they heard it. A familiar, gleeful cackle materializes from the air itself. "KAKAKAKAKA!"
An eight-pointed magic circle shimmered into existence directly in front of Ragnar, and within it, the full figure of Morgans materialized, not just his face.
The giant News Coo was in his element, his power now active and wanting to get a perfect shot.
And they understood. This wasn't just an execution. It was a photo opportunity. A pose. This image would be broadcast to the entire world. The caption wrote itself: "The sea Scourge" holding the lives of two World Nobles in his hands, a look of utter, disdainful boredom on his face, while his crew of angels laid waste to their playground of sin in the background.
Morgans adjusted his angle, making sure to get the perfect shot, Ragnar in the foreground, the Celestial Dragons helpless, the chaotic, divine justice of his female crew visible behind him.
FLASH!
The light from Morgan erupted, capturing the moment for eternity.
The moment the flash died, Ragnar's expression didn't change. He simply opened his hands.
Saint Roswald and Shalria dropped to the floor of the box, gasping and clutching their bruised throats. They looked up at him, expecting the final blow. But except for his hands glowing light once, and a strange thing creeping onto their bodies, nothing else happened.
But Ragnar had already turned his back on them. He had gotten what he came for. The statement had been made. The picture was taken. Actually killing them here would be… anticlimactic.
Let them live. Let them carry the memory of this humiliation, the sight of their own mortality, back to Mariejois. Let them be living testaments to his power.
He jumped down from the box, rejoining his crew. "We're done here," he said, his voice flat.
Nami was supporting Amy, and the other green-haired mermaid Kemi, who looked at Ragnar with a mixture of awe and fear. Robin, Isabella, and Nojiko fell in beside them, their haloes fading, their expressions settling back into their usual composure, though the air around them still crackled with spent power.
Without a backward glance at the ruined auction house, the weeping slavers, the freed slaves, or the two terrified Celestial Dragons, the Vortex Pirates walked out the way they came, leaving behind a scene of devastation.